The three sisters of the "Pham Thi Family"

In a small alley in the Pham Ngu Lao backpacker area, love has blossomed between three sisters, the owners of a restaurant, and three foreign tourists, despite their language and cultural barriers.

>> P1: Ho Chi Minh City backpackers’ town
>> P2: The German who sells sausage on the sidewalk
>> P3: Competition and opportunities in backpacker area

Guests and hosts

Larry Park, who is from England, first met Pham Thi Thuy, 28, when friends invited him to her restaurant in the Pham Ngu Lao area nine years ago. He said he was attracted by her beauty and sense of humor and then asked her out.

“We always talked about lots of things and had many funny times. That’s when I kept thinking I would like to be with her” – Larry said.

Thuy was shy when talking with Tuoi Tre about her first date with Larry. “I told him that if he wants to ask me out, he has to ask my aunt’s permission first. He looked like a fish out of water during first moments but later did what I told him to do. We hanged out together at Dam Sen Cultural Park that day” – Thuy recalled.

“Larry returned home two days after that. We kept in touch via email and phone. Then I realized that he’s very nice and I began missing him…” – she added.

In 2009, Pierre Charil sat at the restaurant for hours every day, but drank only one bottle of beer because he knew Thuy’s sister, Pham Thi Loan, was there. He then suggested teaching Loan French free of charge. The Frenchman said he fell in love with Loan just by getting to know her more and discovering how good she was.

Loan, 30, told Tuoi Tre that she thought she had decided to close off her heart to keep from being hurt anymore after she broke up with a British man, who had also come to the Pham Ngu Lao area as a tourist, until she met Pierre, a then volunteer teacher in Vietnam.

“One day, I suffered a depression and drank wine at a bar in the area from night to dawn. He looked for me everywhere. I felt so touched and decided to develop a serious relationship with him” – Loan said.

The youngest sister, Pham Thi Dung, 25, said she was confused when she first met Cédric Mont-Jovet four years ago, also at the restaurant, because Cédric kept looking at her.

Dung said she is most impressed by her fiancée’s honesty and friendly attitude to her family, but his true smile is what she loves most. “He always smiles and gives give smile to my family” – she said.

Thuy told Tuoi Tre their love blossomed thanks to support from their parents. “They taught us how to live independently when we were children and always respect us” – she said.

Find similarities in differences

Of course, international relationships like the story of the three sisters of the “Pham Thi Family” – a nickname that their husbands gave them – require a lot of effort from those involved to overcome differences in habits and traditions.

Dung said she is still shocked every time she remembers the first time she ate out with Cédric. “When the waiter showed the bill, he suggested he paid for himself and I pay for myself. It’s so strange to Vietnamese culture” – Dung said.

Looking at Dung, Cédric smiled and said that he is most surprised when Dung asks him how many bottles of beer he drank or how many cigarettes he smoked, and then asks him to open his mouth to smell.

“Women in my country never do that but what she did means a lot in my life, it means she loves me and she cares for me. I think the Vietnamese girl’s habit is caring for her husband a lot. I never feel difficult to live with her, but only one thing is make me feel difficult when she want me to stop smoking, It's so hard but I do it for her to show that she is my "Nicotine" – the French man said and smiled again.

Though she has lived happily with Larry for nearly a decade, Thuy admitted that she only understands 80 percent of him, and explained that even couples with the same language and culture don’t understand 100 percent.

In talking about the cultural differences between mix-nationality couples, Larry acknowledged: “Of course if you marry a person from another culture then they have different ways and traditions. Same as we have our culture/attitude/way of doing things/religion etc. Hard for people in the beginning, but now just a normal way of life. We are all different, even before we discuss nationalities.”

Pierre agreed: “The thing is to take the best of both, and we build together our own habits and traditions based on our two cultures. What makes us to stay together is the strong feelings we developed. We accept each other fully and respect other’s differences.”

“The family is also important to me. My wife's family is open minded, careful and really gentle. I understand our family "duties" and I appreciate it. I feel I am a family member, this feels good” – he added.

Looking at Tam My and Duy Jason - two little children of Loan and Thuy respectively - who were playing in front of the restaurant, I wondered how many beautiful love stories between foreigners and local women there are in an area where most foreign tourists just come to experience the country for a short time and go, rather than deciding to have a strong attachment with a new country like Pierre, Cédric and Larry.